A new addition to the Bryan Fuller body
of work is a line of wearing apparel.
Q: To be equally honest, I can't think of anybody else working at your level, either- except maybe Aaron. And John Brain has a new project going, which will kick major ass. But, I was hoping that you'd know of someone I hadn't heard of, so we could interview them.
They're extremely cool-looking, already; but just imagine how much cooler they could look if the
right designer got into the concept. And they don't have to be based on 20" BMX. It would be a good use for those MTBs, which seem so
passe', now that it's chopper time. My buddy
Walter lives in the Sierras, 10 miles up the hill from Porterville. CA. Every time we drive down
bikes are turning into a nexus for a lot of those areas. Boyd Coddington's probably the biggest customer for Steve Hutchison's billet bicycle wheels, for example.

Getting back to an earlier question- ultimately, what is it about bicycles that makes them such an important creative medium for you?
Q: This one really does it for me. Robert Egger's Speed Queen falls into this category ( faired sled?), as does my Kandiru. But this one goes so much further than either of those in that kustom/hot rod spirit of the mechanical infrastructure, while being similar in visual concept. Tell us about this one, please.
I'm catching a breath now. I get a little worked up on that subject.  That guy is starting to get very familiar to many people. It's Chip Foose.  Chip is my boss, mentor, friend, colleague, and just a hell of a guy. He's the lead designer on Overhaulin'- a show on Tuesday nights at 9:00 on TLC. Chip's flat-out the most talented, hardest- working, and coolest man I've ever worked with. The guy is just a badass at taking anything and transforming it into a stylish machine with a signature vibe. Chip is the only savant and natural leader I've personally got to know. In my first year, we were working on Ron
Whiteside's Stallion (copper '34 Ford) and I'd just
Of course, there are other instances in which somebody with kustom cred is brought in to supply some details or a signature decal to somebody else's product design, like the Teutels of OCC to the Stingray, or Jesse James on the Huffy WCC abortion. Not that I consider the OCC guys to be about real kustom thinking; and Jesse's going along with brushing a thin veneer of style onto an ugly piece of crap is disturbing, at best.

Those Stelber people who hired George Barris to develop their Iverson line of musclebikes in the '60s were obviously just a bunch of New York City cigar-sucking suits; but they were hip enough to get Barris to really do it from the ground up, and it shows. Contrast his to those "beloved" 'Rays and Krates It's nice that that sort of thing can still happen in today's bike biz.

Coincidentally, last night I was doing some newsgroup searching using a recent feature of Google. I ran into an AP piece on the origin of
Pacific's new "Schwinn" Stingray Chopper. They have coy implications on their website that it came out of a little chop shop near Milwaukee, home of Harley Davidson. However, it turns out that, in reality, it was designed on spec by a retired Lockheed Martin graphics guy in Lompoc, CA. He approached the company with it and they snapped it up. Don't get me wrong, I think it's basically a fun-looking kiddy bike, and much better-looking than Huffy's for example, but it's catching some flak among the kustombike crowd, for how many aspects of it are "just wrong".
Q: That's great that it actually occurred to them to bring in a real kustom-culture gearhead to get it right. That's pretty rare in the bike industry. I could be wrong, but aside from you at Felt, and Aaron at Nirve, there are no other hard-core kustom kats actually in charge of the serious cultural signifiers. The usual deal is that some 9-to-5 guy in product development flips through some hot-rod magazines, watches a couple of episodes of American Chopper, and browses through BR&K, picks up some superficial touches and slaps them onto a product. It never seems to occur to them that Kustom is a way of life and thinking, and not just a set of superficial style points no thicker than a decal.
We just debuted about 12 new cruisers at Interbike a couple of weeks ago that are in production now and scheduled to arrive in November.  I believe they're the best lineup out there. We're also working on a  version of my recumbent chopper (similiar frame to the Copper Chopper) that will be available hopefully by spring-summer. I'm really excited about this bike. I've been working on it for 6 years on and off, and finally going into full-scale production. Their website is www.feltracing.com: cruisers aren't up yet, but will be soon.
I approached Phat Cycles a few years ago, and asked if they wanted to do a limited run of 20 choppers. They said yes, so I hand-built 20 frames in my friend Nick Garfias's garage in Long Beach. These were all done after hours and weekends, which really took a toll on me. After the 20 I threw away the frame jig, vowing never to build another one of those by hand again. I was very burned out at that point. They retailed for $2500 at that time; and at that price I probably made $3 per hour if I was lucky, not exactly a great way to make a living. After Phat was bought, a couple of years ago, I moved to a new company- Felt Racing in Lake Forest, CA. I'd like to talk about Felt more when you feel the time is right.
Q: And it would crush _______?

Speaking of spectator sports, among the visual artifacts on your site is this logo:
">
">
">
">
">
">
">
">
In Which He Discusses Growing Up
Kustom,  Gearhead Authenticity
Versus  Bicycle Marketing, Real
Hot Rods, Living In Bicycle
Paradise, And The Fact
That There Really Is A
God, And He Goes
By The Name Of
Chip Foose
~
BR&K Interview Conducted By Jim Wilson
         Most people who carry the kustom gene tend to start out in adolescence, by messing with their bicycles. This is probably because toddlers, due to lack of skills at that age, don't do much more than apply stickers to their tricycles. After they work out their chops on bikes, hard-core kustom kids usually work their way up to cars, and if they stick with it diligently enough, they get to the stage where you are now, in relation to that creative medium.
A: That's a good observation. Most of us do start as a kid doing some kind of kustomization. I started building things with my father (the late Ron Fuller), it seems, from birth. He was mainly into carpentry: we built farmhouses, barns, rent houses, etc. Cutting, and hammering, etc. has always been really fun to me. The satisfaction of thinking of something and making reality is very satisfying
Damon Lee is my "Rod and Kustom" friend who took pictures on our group ride shown on the next picture.  Here he gets on the other side of the camera on the "El Segundo Especial" that I patterned after the "California Kid" hot rod.

">
">
">
">
My first buildings were usually forts. We had about 4 acres of dense East Texas woods that was basically uninhabited by anyone else but me and my friends, to erect club houses. I lost lots of Dad's tools, which resulted in plenty of heated arguments.

Bikes were next because they were the only mode of transport in those days. Your BMX was also your main source of  freedom; driving always involved adults. When you and your friends were cruising or making jumps in the woods somewhere you were free. I always hated to be tied down at home;   weekends, and summers (sometimes at night but that's a whole other question) were when I felt the most alive and adult.

In middle school I built (with my lawn mowing money) a full half-pipe in my backyard. It was 6 ft on one side and 8.5 ft on the other. I was in 8th grade (about 1984) and there was only one other quarter-pipe in town. Jacksonville was only about 14,000 people. Most Saturdays, about 5 - 15 kids would ride over and we'd do tricks for probably 4 hours.
It's funny to watch the freestyle guys now because, at the time my best trick was a table-top-: dropping a leg and a hand. I thought that was a hell of a feat, but now that's a joke. I still keep in touch with some of those characters: Nathan Reynolds, Speck and Ament. Damn, those were some good times!
I always kustomized my bikes because I couldn't afford the Redline, Mongoose, etc. that I really wanted. The kids on the East side of town had these bikes and I wanted to be able to compete with them. One was rattle-can painted black from head to toe, including the tires. Dirty? No problem; just paint it again. My favorite BMX-er in those days was my Wal-Mart chrome bike, $125 dollars as I remember it. The first day, I stripped everything off and started kustom work immediately: foot pegs, neck, checkerboard pads, seat,
Skyway wheels, Bearclaw pedals, black and white grips. The whole thing was chrome, black and white. It was one of the cooler-looking bikes in my town; nowhere near as light as the name brands, though.
This was a great day;  5 Fuller choppers together at once for a cruise. From top:  Martin, Boudreau, JC Lee, Paige, Nicole,
D. Gray, and Fuller on the right. Stopped a lot of folks in their tracks that afternoon.
To more completely answer your question, I didn't do anything that wasn't a bolt-on in those days. My ultimate dream was to totally design my own bike. Building these choppers in the last 6 years is fulfilling that dream. I had a lot of dreams as a kid (many say I'm still a kid,) Building these bikes, in a way, is keeping the commitment I made to myself back then, to realize the dreams I have. Once I accomplish these goals I can move on to a new dream and find a way to get that done as well. The problem is that trying to get all these dreams realized takes longer than you would think...it's a short life here on this planet.
Q: There's an amazing amount of commonality in the background of everyone in the kustom world. Almost invariably, we all had DIY dads, even if they weren't involved in anything more hi-tech than woodwork and carpentry. It's probably just being exposed to tool-usage from an early age that gets us going. And I'm sure your dad did his own plumbing and electrical work, too, and drafted you into it.

I'll always be grateful to my late father for his encouragement in that way, especially since he kept his tools in his old army footlocker, which had provision for a padlock. Even when I'd lose or ruin a tool, he never locked them up; although he threatened to pretty often.
And I had a hell of a treehouse I made for myself and my friends, using his tools and stolen construction materials. My buddies and I even built trailers for our bikes, so we could plunder demolition and construction sites more efficiently. Having criminal tendencies is probably common to us all, as well, but we won't get into that. We've got some great photos you sent. How about if we look at one now?
I presume that this is a daily beater. Is that a real baby, or an incredibly-realistic hollow fiberglass replica made for showing off the kustom kiddy seat on that Phat Cycles Chopper? Is that tank the one they were thinking of introducing as an option? CG Mouch has one of those on his moto-chopper, if it's the same one. Were you involved in its development? I first became aware of your bike work through the choppers of yours they were distributing. How did you hook up with them, and is it still going on, after the company's change of ownership?

A: Yes, that is a real baby, I keep threatening to kustomize a baby but I'm not quite ready yet. The picture is of my neighbor, Shawn Matlosz. That's the bike we call Daddy Bike. Shawn is one of my biggest supporters and my official "test rider." Most nights, when I've finished anything from a grip to a whole bike, Shawn is there to praise or criticize. After seeing me do around 33 customs in the last 6 years he had to have one. Not shown is the matching Trail-A-Bike that is also done in flat powder-coat black. There's a special trailer mount that's hard to see there behind the baby seat. We've had so much fun on this bike on the beach for the last couple of years, we even put an XM Jam Box in there sometimes, to cruise with some tunes. A 12-pack of beer fits quite nicely too, I might add.
We live about 300 yards from the beach, here in Manhattan Beach. We're about 5 minutes from LAX, and I believe some of the best beach riding around. You can cruise non-stop south about 6 miles to
Redondo Beach, in front of miles of beach houses and volleyball in one direction. Go north and there's
Marina del Rey, with lots of cool boats to look at. Keep going and you go through Venice and Muscle
Beach, where there's every type of human imaginable on any given day. Farther north is Santa Monica, which is a beautiful city, and of course the amusement park on the pier. All told, in that direction, is probably a 15-mile ride that is very enjoyable.
I feel like a politician because I'm always getting back to the question: Yes; that is one of the old Phat Cycles frames and tanks. I made the molds for that tank probably 4 years ago. There was a fender that went along with it also, both vacuum-formed out of ABS plastic. Vacuum-forming, for those that don't know, is a process where plastic is heated to become soft, then draped over a form and literally sucked into shape. The plastic then cools with the shape in it and is trimmed to fit. Works great; and these fenders were my first attempt at mold-making which I'm doing quite a bit of lately.
The clubs in Australia were the inspiration for this bike. Known as "Disco Balls," a New York collector owns it now. This was my first
attempt at metalflake paint which is really fun to play with.

I approached Phat Cycles a few years ago, and asked if they wanted to do a limited run of 20 choppers. They said yes, so I hand-built 20 frames in my friend Nick Garfias's garage in Long Beach. These were all done after hours and weekends, which really took a toll on me. After the 20 I threw away the frame jig, vowing never to build another one of those by hand again. I was very burned out at that point. They retailed for $2500 at that time; and at that price I probably made $3 per hour if I was lucky, not exactly a great way to make a living. After Phat was bought, a couple of years ago, I moved to a new company- Felt Racing in Lake Forest, CA. I'd like to talk about Felt more when you feel the time is right.
Q: Pretty tough to top that as a segue; and no time like the present, I always say. It's funny, but I was under the impression that Felt was a German company; probably because the first ones I saw were photos of some kustomized ones sent me by people over  there.

We've got these photos of that amazing copper one. Is that typical, or a special show bike? What sort of deal do you have with them?

This is the "Copper Chopper" recently debuted at Interbike. Shown here on its maiden voyage in Hermosa Beach. This was actually my original chopper revamped into a new look.

A: You're right, Felt Racing is registered as a German corporation. They were started about 5 years ago by Micheal Muellmann, Bill Duehring, and Jim Felt. Micheal and Bill are the two main partners. We like to think it gives the company the best of both worlds: German quality combined with USA style and creativity.

Micheal is in charge of the German division where they do all international sales. Micheal's background is a company called Sports Imports,  that he has owned for 20 Years.

Bill is head of the USA division and the guy I report to here in CA.  He was with Jamis for 7 years, and GT for 15 years previously, before joining with Micheal to begin Felt. He has 25 years experience sourcing parts in Taiwan, and has a really great relationship over there with factories. It gives us a real advantage trying to get the best quality bike possible.  As you can imagine, having to source all of the little parts on a bike and put them together into a quality product is quite a task.

Jim Felt is the namesake and has lots of frame design under his belt. He consults for the company on technical issues. Jim worked for  Easton, is a custom frame builder and was the team mechanic for Johnny Omara years ago. I've only met him once at Interbike, this year but he's a real hoot.

Felt brought me in to help with details and design on their cruisers. They had been planning on producing cruisers in the states but wanted to have a really strong product before release because of the immense competition here.  As you can imagine, just getting bikes designed  and manufactured with off-the-shelf parts is a task as it is. Keeping  up with changes, designing new suspension bikes, BMX and road bikes, really keeps them busy. I'm an outside designer who can look at the  line from a distance and make suggestions, prototypes, etc. to help  make a better bike. I work with engineers such as Jeff Soucek and Tim Lane getting parts designed on the computer.
Those guys are amazing, I wish I had that skill. Graphic artist Brett King does a  great job on colors and graphics, Brian Wilson as director of product development has the daunting task of trying to get all my crazy, plus everyone else's ideas and wishes, and actually having a factory make it happen...not easy.
We just debuted about 12 new cruisers at Interbike a couple of weeks ago that are in production now and scheduled to arrive in November.  I believe they're the best lineup out there. We're also working on a  version of my recumbent chopper (similiar frame to the Copper Chopper) that will be available hopefully by spring-summer. I'm really excited about this bike. I've been working on it for 6 years on and off, and finally going into full-scale production. Their website is www.feltracing.com: cruisers aren't up yet, but will be soon.
Q: That's great that it actually occurred to them to bring in a real kustom-culture gearhead to get it right. That's pretty rare in the bike industry. I could be wrong, but aside from you at Felt, and Aaron at Nirve, there are no other hard-core kustom kats actually in charge of the serious cultural signifiers. The usual deal is that some 9-to-5 guy in product development flips through some hot-rod magazines, watches a couple of episodes of American Chopper, and browses through BR&K, picks up some superficial touches and slaps them onto a product. It never seems to occur to them that Kustom is a way of life and thinking, and not just a set of superficial style points no thicker than a decal.
Coincidentally, last night I was doing some newsgroup searching using a recent feature of Google. I ran into an AP piece on the origin of
Pacific's new "Schwinn" Stingray Chopper. They have coy implications on their website that it came out of a little chop shop near Milwaukee, home of Harley Davidson. However, it turns out that, in reality, it was designed on spec by a retired Lockheed Martin graphics guy in Lompoc, CA. He approached the company with it and they snapped it up. Don't get me wrong, I think it's basically a fun-looking kiddy bike, and much better-looking than Huffy's for example, but it's catching some flak among the kustombike crowd, for how many aspects of it are "just wrong".
Of course, there are other instances in which somebody with kustom cred is brought in to supply some details or a signature decal to somebody else's product design, like the Teutels of OCC to the Stingray, or Jesse James on the Huffy WCC abortion. Not that I consider the OCC guys to be about real kustom thinking; and Jesse's going along with brushing a thin veneer of style onto an ugly piece of crap is disturbing, at best.

Those Stelber people who hired George Barris to develop their Iverson line of musclebikes in the '60s were obviously just a bunch of New York City cigar-sucking suits; but they were hip enough to get Barris to really do it from the ground up, and it shows. Contrast his to those "beloved" 'Rays and Krates It's nice that that sort of thing can still happen in today's bike biz.

Before we get back to bikes, how about telling us the story behind this photo of the tasty '50 Ford Kustom? The guy in the blue shirt looks kind of familiar. ;-)
A: Wow, I couldn't agree more. No names, but a company I talked to a couple of years ago said that they got a lot of their advice about hot rods from their photographer who just happened to shoot rods. He photographed their beginning "hot rod bikes", and said you should do this and that; basically consulting for them. It's pretty sad, if that's your product consultant.
The problem with design these days,  in many cases, is that everything is designed by committee and cost. You design this bike for a $200-dollar price range and that one for $400.The price dictates the design of the bike.

Another big problem I have is HOT RODS ARE NOT PAINT AND POLISH!   Sorry, just hit a nerve there. You take an old car and paint and polish it, that's called a restoration. If you want to make a rod, you change the engine, the brakes, the suspension.  Bicycles these days are trying to validate themselves as  "motorcycle inspired" or "Kustom-Kulture inspired."  Just painting a cruiser the colors of the 50's cars doesn't make it a legitimate item.
My hope with Felt is to change that trend, to make a bike that has a singular voice of quality from the rims to the grips. We want to make a statement that is top-to-bottom quality and individuality. I could go on for a while on this one, but go to a bike shop and look at all of the cruisers out there. I'm not very impressed. If we had to show a person from the 50's who was time-warped to 2004 our progress, I think we'd be pretty embarrassed. Look how far road bikes, BMX, etc. have come in 50 years. Cruisers have actually gotten worse in 100 years of "evolution." I don't want to let all of our innovations out of the bag but as an example, every new Felt Cruiser will have an aluminum frame.